


Swedish Girl Creates A Robot To Do Her Homework! You Won't Believe What Happens Next!

by Ardene



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Slice of Life, young Brigitte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 08:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardene/pseuds/Ardene
Summary: Passing grade 8 for Brigitte means acing this essay. Unfortunately, just reading the essay questions almost killed her. Maybe she can think of another way to get through this? And hey- if things don't work out Reinhardt is always there to bail her out!





	Swedish Girl Creates A Robot To Do Her Homework! You Won't Believe What Happens Next!

 

_Respond to one of the prompts below in an essay of 500 words or more. Your essay must be peer edited, be free of grammatical and spelling errors, and use transitionary phrases._

  1. _A great deal of the novel focuses on Sophia’s blue earrings. How do the earrings relate to each scene in which they are mentioned? (pg. 23, 47, 89, 103, 217) What is the significance behind the colour blue? Would the meaning change if they were a different type of jewellery?_



Brigitte stopped reading and tossed the paper across the room, slumping back in her chair. Writing essays was already awful, and writing essays on a book she hated was just excruciating. While her 8th grade teacher, Mrs. Carnell, was a great teacher, she was terrible at choosing engaging, enjoyable books. Even the students who more keen on literature struggled with her book choices, as well as the writing topics. This meant that Brigitte, who had more of a head for math and science, was doomed. So very doomed.

Ingrid poked her head into her daughter’s room. “How is the essay going, dear?” She asked.

“Great,” Brigitte sighed, scratching her cat behind the ear.

Ingrid looked down at the paper lying on the floor. “Don’t you need this to write your essay?” she asked. She glanced over the paper, frowning.

“Isn’t it bad?” Brigitte asked.

“It’s not… well, it could be worse,” Ingrid said with a small laugh. “I’m going to the store to pick up some groceries, try to get something done by the time I get back, okay? Remember that Mrs. Carnell said she won’t take any more late assignments from you.” Ingrid placed the paper back on Brigitte’s desk, ruffled her hair, and slowly closed the door upon her exit. Brigitte sighed again and picked up the paper.

 

  1. _Toni makes many references to Shakespeare’s soliloquies while trying to woo Sophia. How do these speeches (pg. 54, 76, 79, 93, 147) match or differ from Shakespeare’s famous soliloquies? How do these change the tension and mood in the scene?_



Brigitte threw the paper on the floor once again. She couldn’t do this. No way. There were still three more topics she could choose from and she knew that just reading through them might actually kill her. There was no way she could do this. But there was also no way she _couldn’t_ do this. Not if she wanted to pass grade 8, that is. Which meant if she couldn’t do it, yet it had to be done… then what if someone else did it. Or, something? An idea came to her.

Brigitte slipped on a pair of shoes and walked to the garage and into her dad’s workshop. He was away for a few weeks; he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed some of his equipment. First things first: some drafting paper and a pencil. Once the blueprint was made, she needed some metal, screws, wires… she danced around the workshop, tossing equipment onto the desk against the wall. A bit of this, a bit of that. Why not this? Oh, we’ll surely need some of that! Once everything was gathered it was time to get to work. That essay would be done by Monday, like it or not.

\-----

Ingrid opened the door to the workshop. “There you are!” she sighed, looking at Brigitte’s back. “Supper’s almost ready… shouldn’t you be doing homework?”

“I’m taking a break,” she mumbled around the pencil in her mouth.

“Okay, well, be inside in five minutes. Make sure you wash up, too.”

Brigitte mumbled a sound of confirmation, still staring intently at her creation. Five minutes wasn’t much time, but she could make use of the break. The body was built, the programming was almost ready to go, all she had to do was download the correct files. She clicked on the ones she needed to transfer over. Connect it to the printer, connect it to the internet, upload a digital copy of the book, put in the language file, a few more clicks and… done! The rest of the work could happen during supper. She wiped her hands on her pants, cringed as they came out more black than they did before, and decided it would be a good idea to go wash up and change.

As she exited the bathroom she bumped into her younger brother, who was about to head in to wash his hands. “Where have you been?” He asked. “Remember mom said you shouldn’t use dad’s tools without him around.”

“I wasn’t using anything dangerous,” she rolled her eyes, “just making a simple robot.”

His eyes brightened up. “A robot? What does it do? Can it shoot lasers?”

“No,” she laughed, “but that would be a good idea. Actually it’s supposed to read my book for my literature class, read the essay questions from the teacher, and write an essay for me. So you see, it’s written by me because the robot was created by me, but I don’t have to do the awful work.”

“That’s so cool!” he shouted. “Can I use it for my homework?”

“If it works as well as I think it should!” she said with a wink.

Of course the robot worked perfectly. At least, there was a neat pile of papers sitting at the bottom of the printer, stapled nicely together, cover page and references and everything. Brigitte flipped through the booklet without actually reading it. Yup, that looked like an essay. Good enough. She tossed it into her backpack and pulled out her brand-new copy of Half-Life 3. She had a lot of work to do if she wanted to finish it during launch week.

\-----

“So that’s why I built a robot to write the stupid essay for me. And honestly everything was perfect except for one thing- apparently I clicked the wrong language and instead of hitting ‘Swedish’ I hit ‘Spanish’ instead, so my whole essay was in Spanish! So of course Mrs. Carnell phoned my mom and they had a conference and I have to write yet _another_ essay now and she’s all like ‘oh, I know that you hate this topic so let me make it up to you by giving you a fun topic about science!’ since I just like, have to show my writing ability or whatever, so now I have to write a dumb essay about bees.” Brigitte finally ran out of breath and had to stop to breathe for a moment. Reinhardt took this opportunity to speak.

“Aww, I’m sorry to hear that, Brigitte. But you know, you could have just asked me to write it in the first place! I always did great at essay writing when I was in school! And remember, I am always just a phone call away.”

Brigitte’s eyes widened. “Would you, maybe, write my new essay for me? The bee one?” She asked.

“Of course!” Reinhardt laughed. “Just tell me the topic and I will write it for you! The only thing is you will have to translate it to Swedish. So you will still be writing it, right? I’m just giving you the content!” He laughed again.

“Thank you so much!” Brigitte yelled into the phone. “I’ll text you the topic, okay? Seriously, thank you Reinhardt. You are a life saver.”

“Any time, dear. Say hello to your mom for me, okay?”

“I will!”

Brigitte ended the call and hugged her phone. She was going to get through this, no matter what!

\-----

Reinhardt pushed open the heavy doors to the public library. He looked around for a moment, then approached the counter. “Excuse me!”

The woman behind the counter jumped, not expecting him to be quite so loud. “Yes?” She asked.

“I need some books on bees- where could I find them?”

“Follow me. And sir, please try to keep it down,” she whispered, getting up and leading him towards the area.

“Sorry, that’s my bad!” He bellowed with a hearty laugh. The librarian sighed.

“Here is our section on animal books. It appears that there are some on bees right here. If you need a place to start, there is also a shelf of encyclopaedias against that wall.”

The librarian left and Reinhardt began to pull any book that looked vaguely relevant off the shelf. Plus some that weren’t relevant, but looked interesting anyways. Maybe he should stop by the sci-fi/fantasy section, as well…

Pretty soon he was standing in the line to check out, a mountain of books in his arms. A young boy looked up at him, in awe by the sheer amount of books he was carrying. Reinhardt smiled down at him. The book he was holding in his hands caught his eye. “Well now, is that ‘Dragon Riders of Riveron’? I used to love reading those books as a kid! In fact, I remember sitting on the steps of this very library, waiting for it to open so I could be the first to get my hands on the new books as they were released! There was a kind old man that used to work here who, whenever the new book came out, he would send me an e-mail and say that he just got the new book in and it would be on the shelf the next day! And I would get in right as the library opened and I would make a beeline to the shelf and usually I would be done the book by that very evening!” Reinhardt laughed again.

Every library patron was staring at the boisterous man shouting in the middle of the library line. Even the librarians were staring, book in one hand, scanner in the other, neither hand moving. They all seemed slightly disturbed, aside from the young boy, who was looking up with stars in his eyes. “I’ve never met anyone else who has read these,” he said. “I always try to get other kids at my school to try them but they make fun of me.”

Reinhardt let out a gasp. “Make fun of you! Well, I’ll have you know that there is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to good books!” Reinhardt dropped his books down on a counter with a loud crash, grabbed a pen and scrap paper off the desk and scribbled down a number. “Here you go, call me any time you need someone to talk to about them!”

The kid grabbed the paper and gingerly put it in his pocket. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Work slowly resumed and eventually Reinhardt had all his books checked out. Now it was time to return- and get Brigitte her essay!”

\-----

_Hark! The humble honey bee. Busily she buzzes; to and fro, up and down, elegantly buzzing from flower to flower. But just how does she do that? Such a large, hardworking body supported by such small, fragile wings makes it seem like flight should be an impossibility. But is this really the case?_

 

Brigitte squinted at her essay. Is this really how you’re supposed to write an essay? Aren’t you supposed to use fancy words and sentences that last half a page, and sound as smart and hoity-toity as possible? She shrugged, Reinhardt was the adult. He knew best. All she could do was trust him, and keep translating this essay.

When she handed it in it was a few days before she heard anything back from her teacher. Finally, one day just before she was about to leave for lunch, Mrs. Carnell caught her at her locker. “Brigitte, I want to talk to you about your essay.”

Brigitte took a deep breath, looked up at her, and asked a small “yes?”

Mrs. Carnell pulled the essay out of a folder in her hands. “Honestly, I have never seen an essay quite like this before. I can tell that you were being very sarcastic throughout the whole thing but even so, it was entertaining to read and possesses a level of engagement you don’t usually see in an essay at this age. Generally students are so invested in trying to show off how intelligent they are they forgo any sort of style in favour of showing off. The content was good, you had great evidence and transitions, and honestly, it was an extremely well-done essay.”

Mrs. Carnell dropped the essay into Brigitte’s hands. “Congratulations, young lady.”

Brigitte looked down at her mark and smiled. It took a few tries, but she got there in the end. And hey, as her father always says, “hard work pays off!”

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't cheat on your homework kids
> 
> From the Biggo Bingo Bango prompt "My First Time Writing Robot"


End file.
